McHenry, IL

Jessup Manufacturing Company’s energy-efficient Glo Brite® Eco ExitTM signs can help building owners respond to Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman’s request for commercial, industrial and institutional building owners to invest in modern lighting systems that reduceenergy consumption.

The Department of Energy estimates that more than $50 billion is being wasted each year by the owners of 2.8 million U.S. commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings that rely on outmoded lightingsystems.

Jessup’s Eco ExitTM line, which was introduced in April, consumes no energy and needs no maintenance, reducing costs and the carbon footprint for building owners The signs from North America’s leading manufacturer of photoluminescent safety products include single-sided and double-sided configurations with multiple mounting options and viewing distances of up to 100 feet.

In an early December letter to building industry leaders, Secretary Bodman wrote, “More than 75% of the nation’s five million commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings were built prior to the introduction of many groundbreaking energy efficient technologies currently available today. These buildings consume nearly 900 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, at a cost exceeding $115 billion each
year.”

According to the Federal Energy Management Program, the best available exit signs use photoluminescent technology. Jessup has applied ten years of research and development into producing zero energy, environmentally-friendly Eco ExitTM signs. The signs store the power of ambient light, so they are safe and do not use any additional energy like electrical exit signs. A building with 100 Eco ExitTM signs can save as much as $3,500 a year in energy costs and reduce air pollution by almost a half a million pounds of carbon dioxide compared with electrical signs over the life of the product.

“Our Glo Brite® Eco ExitTM products are the most energy efficient exit signs on the market today,” said Alan M. Carlson,vice president marketing support and business development for Jessup. “These signs don’t require wiring, bulbs or batteries, which gives building operators a simple way meet exit safety standards while saving money.”

In addition to ongoing utility bill savings, building owners may qualify for tax benefits that improve the return on investment for upgrading lighting systems.

National Lighting Bureau Chair Robert W. Colgan, Jr. noted, “The Commercial Building Tax Deduction [CBTD] introduced through the Energy Policy Act of 2005 has been extended through December 31, 2013. The CBTD gives owners a tax benefit of as much as 60¢ per square foot for qualifying lighting systems, effectively lowering the investment required to update or replace an outmoded system. The return—in the form of utility bill savings and the bottom-line benefits of providing better seeing conditions-creates a genuinely huge financial incentive at a time when building owners could really use one.”

Many building owners are already switching to Glo Brite® Eco ExitTM photoluminescent signs not only for energy savings, but as a safer alternative to signs using radioactive tritium technology. Tritium, a hydrogen isotope in gas form that emits radiation in the form of beta rays, has long been the subject of scrutiny by government and retail groups.

Due to its volatility, each tritium radioactive exit sign has its own registration number submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) with seller and user identification. Eco ExitTM signs are UL 924 Listed and non-toxic so there is no disposal issues common with tritium signs that utilize radioactive materials. Tritium signs that are damaged or incorrectly disposed of can lead to NRC incident reports requiring corrective action. During the first six months of the year, there were at least eight NRC incident reports involving damaged or missing tritium signs.

“Our Eco ExitTM signs use the most advanced technology with the highest value to the customer,” says Carlson. “There is no advantage to specifying tritium or electrical exit signs in any building today.”